Paul Hibbs drives a Volkswagen e-Golf 35.8kWh 2019.
This is Paul’s first electric car, he’s owned the e-Golf less than 1 year and drives 5,000-10,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 30,000-40,000 miles and he achieves 135 miles from a full charge.
Why did you choose the Volkswagen e-Golf?
I love the traditional Golf look and style having owned 2 previously. This car to me has the look and feel of a traditional car without the wacky styling that some current EVs have. The build-quality is excellent, the app features like pre conditioning the car before a journey are always great. More importantly, this car is so much fun to drive, amazing acceleration, silent to drive and it’s so cheap to run. Range has never been an issue with this car for me.
Positives – List 3 or more reasons why you love this electric car
- Looks amazing
- fun to drive, it never fails to put a smile on my face every time I drive it
- cheap to run (£2 per charge with Octopus Intelligent charging) and I charge 1-2 times per week at home.
Negatives – List 3 or more things that you really don’t like about this electric car
- Boot space is a little smaller than a traditional Golf as you have to take charging cables with you which does take up space
- I would have preferred if the car had keyless entry but not a deal breaker
- while the car does have Apple CarPlay it doesn’t support wireless Apple CarPlay. However, this can be overcome with the purchase of an adapter and is more because of when the car was made as most new EVs will have this feature but still not an issue.
Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?
No faults at all.
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What are the standout technological features of the car?
- Auto brake is amazing, it will stop you hitting anything and works very well
- I love the app and the ability to open the car, open the boot, start the charging, check the range available and either warm up/defrost the car or cool it down ready for a journey, all remotely from the VW app on my smartphone
- I will never get over how quiet this car is, it makes me smile every time I pull away.
Surprise us! Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about this electric car
Supporting Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is really great. Your phone is out of the way but then integrated within the display, you can access music, maps, podcasts and even use a button on the steering wheel to activate voice commands to play tracks, send messages etc.
What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?
Tesla Model 3 – the look and design as well as the increased range and infrastructure of the Tesla network.
Home charging unit – outline both positive & negative elements
myenergi zappi home charger – works with Octopus Intelligent tariff which basically means you can plug in your car, leave it and Octopus will put together a charging plan through the night using off-peak energy to charge the car ready for this morning. You can also bypass this and charge on the zappi app any time. Only downside was the cost as it cost me £1,200 to install as I needed extra long cable to get my charger where it needed to be. However, I have managed to make this money back over the first 6 months of charging.
Electricity supplier & tariff – outline both positive & negative elements
Positives of Octopus Intelligent are the ease of it, plug it in, leave it and it’s ready for you in the morning, roughly costs £2 to fully charge the e-Golf from flat.
The only downside is this is still in Beta and is prone to not charging on the odd occasion. I’m in the habit of checking my app first thing in the morning to see if it has charged, if it hasn’t and I need the range then I can automatically start charging from the app. Not ideal but never been an issue. It probably fails to charge using Octopus Intelligent 1 out of every 20 charges.
Do you use public charging networks?
No
Insurer – outline both positive & negative elements
Same cost to insure vs my previous VW Golf.
Please itemise where you’re saving money (or not) owning & running a Volkswagen e-Golf
I pay £15 a month to VW for the serving of the car once a year. This gets me a full service one year followed by a interim the next. As the car is using regenerative braking you hardly use your brakes so these still have years left on them. There is just far less to go wrong and little in the way of parts to keep changing.
